Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 113

Jeff Bezos' $450 million superyacht is going to cause a historic World War II steel bridge to be dismantled so it can get out to sea.

According to a report from The Guardian, the historic steel frame bridge in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam is to be partially dismantled in order to let a 417 foot-long superyacht called "Y721", constructed for Jeff Bezos, to pass out into the sea. The superyacht costs $485 million and is too large to get past the Koningshaven Bridge that was built in 1927, and rebuilt after the Nazis bombed it during World War II. The bridge operated until 1994, where it was then declared a national monument, with the city stating that it would never be dismantled again.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case, with the mayor of the city now pointing towards the economic benefits created by the construction of the superyacht. Additionally, the local council reassured individuals in the Netherlands angered by the decision to partly dismantle the bridge that it would be rebuilt exactly how it was before Bezos' superyacht began construction. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A team of researchers has identified evidence that suggests a comet only narrowly missed Earth, but still managed to make a devastating impact on the surface of the planet.

A new study published in Scientific Reports hones in on a comet that passed Earth sometime during 252 and 383 BC. Researchers believe that the comet passed close enough to Earth that debris entered Earth's atmosphere and was observed by several different civilizations at the time, including Chinese astronomers, the Miami tribe, and the Shawnee tribe. The debris from the comet exploded over the Ohio River Valley region. The event was described differently by each civilization, but all fit the description of comet debris.

The team of researchers found evidence for the event at 11 sites that belong to the indigenous Ohio Hopewell culture as 9,200 square miles would have been set on fire and leveled from the explosion. In 1908 comet debris exploded over a Russian forest and wiped out 830 square miles of forest, this was called the Tunguska event. The comet debris that exploded over the Ohio River Valley impacted ten times the area and would have caused widespread suffering for people living in the affected area.

A new study has found that SpaceX's Starlink satellites are causing an increasing number of problems for astronomers.

The new study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and claims that SpaceX's Starlink satellites are causing streaks of reflected sunlight to appear in a growing number of astronomers' photographs. Currently, SpaceX has around 1,900 of its Starlink satellites in orbit, and the US Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of 12,000 satellites.

The researchers behind the study found that in Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) images that were taken during the night, there was a 35-fold increase in the number of sunlight streaks caused by Starlink satellites. Comparatively, in late 2019 less than 0.5% of ZTF images contained Starlink streaks, and as of August 2021, 18% of the images were found to be contaminated with streaks.

SpaceX recently launched the COSMO-SkyMed Earth observation satellite, and incredible footage of the rocket separating during the flight has been captured and published for the public to enjoy.

The above video has been posted onto the SpaceX YouTube channel and showcases the company's workhorse launch vehicle, the Falcon 9. The footage shows the Falcon 9 using its first-stage booster to push the rocket's payload higher into Earth's atmosphere at the ridiculous speed of more than 3,700 miles per hour. After the first stage has completed its burn, it separates from the rocket and makes its way back down to Earth.

During its descent, the rocket orientates itself to safely land so it can be reused, saving millions in manufacturing. After the first stage separates, the second stage ignites its Merlin boosters to continue the rest of the journey. Notably, the video showcases the payload firing, which is the "shell" of the rocket separating, allowing the payload to be dropped off at the requested altitude.

The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system can now survey the entire night sky.

The ATLAS system is funded by NASA and run by the University of Hawai'i and initially comprised two telescopes that became fully operational in 2017. The telescopes were based in two different locations in Hawai'i, Haleakala, and Maunaloa, and were able to scan the night sky for asteroids every 24 hours. However, they are limited to only observing the night sky visible from the northern hemisphere.

Now, NASA funding has resulted in the completion of two more telescopes, both located in the southern hemisphere. The first was built in South Africa by the South African Astronomical Observatory. The second was built in Chile, supported by a collaboration between the Millennium Institute for Astrophysics and the private company Obstech.

A new paper published in the journal Nature Energy describes the novel technology.

Engineers from the University of Delaware (UD) captured 99% of carbon dioxide in the air when using their novel hydrogen-powered electrochemical system. The team responsible has been attempting to improve fuel cell technology for over fifteen years, searching for a workaround to the reduced efficiency hydroxide exchange membrane (HEM) fuel cells experience when absorbing carbon dioxide.

They realized that the sensitivity of the fuel cell to carbon dioxide, while detrimental to its efficiency in converting the chemical energy in fuel to electricity, meant it could be used as an effective tool for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

A new study published in the journal PLoS Genetics describes the worrying finding.

Researchers have analyzed the genomes of a thousand Han Chinese people, determining the link between their genetic variations and their perception of ten different scents. They compared the results with the same experiment repeated with six scents with a more ethnically diverse group of 364 people.

Two new receptors for smell were identified, one for detecting the synthetic musk used in fragrances and another for a compound in the odor from the human armpit. They found that people with the ancestral versions of the genes, the same as those found in non-human primates, for their scent receptors, rated the corresponding scents as more intense compared to participants with the more recently emerging variants of the genes.

A new preprint paper has been published detailing the finding.

Astronomers witnessed a potential microlensing event in 2011 that has now been confirmed to be due to the presence of a free-floating black hole. Such black holes have been theorized to exist but hadn't been found, as they are much harder to observe amongst the black nothingness of space.

Researchers looked for lensing effects, the bending of light from stars close to a black hole, to find the black hole. When a black hole is further away from neighboring stars, its gravitational pull is weaker, and the lensing effect is lessened, making them significantly more difficult to find.

The discovery has caused some controversy on whether it truly is the Endeavour.

Researchers found the shipwreck off the coast of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Researchers from the Australian National Maritime Museum have claimed it is the remains of Captain James Cook's ship, the HMS Endeavour, which sunk in August 1778. However, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project has claimed it is too early to say definitively.

The project executive director for the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, DK Abbass, says the announcement is a "breach of contract" by the Australian National Maritime Museum and that "conclusions will be driven by proper scientific process and not Australian emotions or politics" regarding whether or not the shipwreck is indeed the Endeavour.

A new study published in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science highlights the accelerating ice loss Mount Everest is experiencing.

Researchers from the University of Maine have concluded that several decades worth of accumulation in Mount Everest's glaciers are melting and sublimating away annually due to human-induced climate change. The decaying glaciers will likely increase avalanches' occurrence and decrease the glacier's capacity to store water, which communities depend on for drinking water and irrigation.

It is also expected that expeditions to climb the mountain could become more challenging, as bedrock becomes exposed with snow and ice cover wearing thin. The research, resulting from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, show that impacts of human-induced climate change are reaching the highest glaciers around the world, significantly more so since the later 1990s. An ice-core taken from the South Col Glacier shows that ice is thinning 80 times faster than the time taken to accumulate.

A study describing the new material has been published in the journal Nature.

MIT chemical engineers have created a new material dubbed 2DPA-1, which is stronger than steel, as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities. The study's authors suggest it could be used in several applications, such as a lightweight, durable coating for automotive parts or cell phones or as a building material in bridges or other structures.

The two-dimensional polymer can self-assemble into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which instead form into one-dimensional chains. Scientists previously thought it was impossible to induce polymers to form in two-dimensional sheets, as polymerizing a monomer in an attempt to make a two-dimensional structure can easily branch out into a three-dimensional structure.

SpaceX is helping to carry out the NROL-87 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The Falcon 9 carrying the classified payload was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on February 2nd at 12:27:26 p.m. PST (3:27:26 p.m. EST; 2027:26 UTC). The NRO owns the U.S. government's fleet of spy satellites, which map the Earth while monitoring communications between foreign entities and tracking global naval movements.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 returned safely to Earth just over eight minutes following launch, landing at Vandenberg's Landing Zone 4. Per the NRO's request, SpaceX's livestream coverage of the event ended shortly after the first stage touched down.

A study on the new material has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst engineered a new metamaterial, a material that has a property not found in naturally occurring materials. The "elasto-magnetic" metamaterial comprises an elastic, rubber-like substance with tiny magnets embedded throughout it.

The amount of energy released and absorbed by the material is amplified by utilizing phase changes. Changes from solid to liquid, and liquid to gaseous states, involve absorption of energy into a material, and changes back release an equivalent amount of energy.

The International Space Station (ISS) will likely be decommissioned in late 2030.

NASA has provided a updated timeline for the ISS, entitled the "International Space Station Transition Report," which highlights what the station plans to achieve before the end of its operational life. The ISS National Laboratory is currently responsible for utilizing half of NASA's resources aboard the space station, facilitating experiments and research for government agencies, academic institutions, and commercial users.

The approval for continued operation until 2030 will ensure a smooth transition for space-goers from the ISS to the upcoming commercially-owned and -operated LEO destinations (CLDs). Space act agreements have been awarded by NASA to various companies for the designing and construction of three such commercial space stations.

The Artemis I mission will now launch no sooner than April 2022.

NASA had originally scheduled the launch for late 2021, but it has since suffered multiple delays. A pre-flight "wet dress rehearsal" was scheduled for late February, but this has been delayed until at least mid-March, thanks to a long list of tasks NASA still needs to attend to for the mission.

According to Mike Sarafin, NASA's Artemis I mission manager, the first launch window for the Artemis I mission is between April 8th and April 23rd, with a second launch window between May 7th and May 21st. A turnaround of no less than two weeks is expected once the wet dress rehearsal is complete.

Astronomers observing near-Earth objects have found that a spent SpaceX rocket stage from a mission years ago is on track to collide with the Moon.

The astronomer is Bill Gray, known for the Project Pluto software that is used to track many near-Earth objects such as asteroids, comets, etc. Gray called upon fellow astronomers, both amateur and professionals, to track SpaceX's object and make additional observations. With the acquired data, Gray believes that SpaceX's spent upper rocket stage will likely impact the far side of the Moon close to the equator on March 4.

Now, if the observations prove to be accurate and SpaceX's spent rocket debris crashes into the Moon, does Elon Musk's company get sued? Firstly, no one actually owns the Moon, so no country could sue the company for debris crashing into its surface. However, if the debris were to crash into a rover, then there could be a precedence for legal action as the Outer Space Treaty of 1966, and the Convention on International Liability for Damage Causes by Space Objects of 1972 states countries can make legal claims against other countries if their spacecrafts are damaged by other spacecrafts.

A team of astronomers captured an incredible image of the core of our Milky Way galaxy, showing "the best insight yet into the population of mysterious 'radio filaments' found nowhere else."

The image was published by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and is comprised of 20 separate observations that took more than 200 hours of time to obtain. The radio telescope used to make the observations is a 64-antenna radio telescope called the MeerKAT array, located in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The array of extremely sensitive antennas was focussed at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 25,000 light-years away from Earth.

The below image showcases parallel radio-emitting magnetized threads astronomers describe as "filaments". These filaments consist of emissions from the galactic center where the 4 million solar mass supermassive black hole Sagittarius A resides at the brightest point. Researchers behind the report say that the detail of this image may be a goldmine for scientific research.

It seems that many people within the US public don't seem to believe that the Space Force is an authentic branch of the US military.

Back in October of last year, a Space Force captain was traveling with their partner and arrived at the Spirit Airlines ticket counter to receive their ticket. The Space Force captain asked the ticketer to apply the waived baggage fee for active-duty military personnel after explaining they were an officer with Space Force. The Spirit employee didn't believe the officer was on active duty or that the branch of the military existed, even after the officer showed the employee a military-issued ID card.

The officer spoke to Military.com, saying, "In the moment, I was flabbergasted. We tried to take it on methodically and convince him that the Space Force was real." Former President Donald Trump signed in the Space Force under the Department of the Air Force two years ago, and it seems that despite the time, many individuals don't seem to believe in its existence.

NASA has taken to its blog to explain that the Hubble Space Telescope has been used to observe a region of space called the Chamaeleon Cloud Complex.

The Chamaeleon Cloud Complex is a star-forming region that stretches 65-light years wide. The above photograph is a composite image called Chamaeleon Cloud I (Cha I), and it showcases the reflection nebulae glowing with the light of the young blue stars. Additionally, the dusty dark clouds seen throughout the image are regions of space where stars are forming. Radiant knots are also seen throughout the image. These are called Herbig-Haro objects.

The space agency writes that Cha 1 was observed with the intention of locating low-mass brown dwarf stars. NASA describes these stars as "failed" due to their lack of mass restricting them from ever igniting to sustain nuclear fusion within their cores. "Hubble's search found six new low-mass brown dwarf candidates that are helping astronomers better understand these objects."

A study published in the journal Nature Communications describes the discovery.

The researchers were able to change the magnetic properties of nickel phosphorus trisulfide (NiPS3), by way of a quasiparticle known as "excitons." An exciton refers to an electron and a "hole" left behind where the electron was when it moves after absorbing energy from an incoming photon of light. Quantum mechanics mean the electron and the hole remain connected.

A property of electrons called spin enables magnets to work, and when all of these spins are aligned to point in one direction, the result is a ferromagnet. The nickel phosphorus trisulfide material used by the team is antiferromagnet, in which alternating spins point in opposite directions. They were able to cause the electron's spin to rotate by shining a light pulse at the material, generating a spin wave, which may be used in the field of spintronics (or spin electronics) to create new, faster computer memory technologies.